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Some reversals of financial trends prove so momentous they define the generation in which they occur. The stock market crash in 1929 kicked off the Great Depression, which ushered in the welfare and then the warfare state and redefined the relationship between government and citizens.

Bonds and stocks began their bull market runs in the early 1980s. Now, those markets are fonts of optimism increasingly unhinged from reality. The US has come full circle. The New Deal and World War II marked a massive shift of resources and power to the federal government. Conversely, financial reversal will fuel a virulent backlash against the government and its central bank.

Such epochal reversals are usually foreseeable. However, they are long in the making and involve such a confluence of powerful forces that usually only a handful get the timing right. Calling the end of the current bull markets has been difficult because of governments and central banks are desperate to keep them alive. Central bankers prattle on about the wealth effects of elevated stock markets and how low interest rates promote debt and consumption, supposedly the fountainhead of economic progress. Those emissions are noxious nonsense. Central banks promote rising markets because they are under the thumbs of their governments; independent central banker is an oxymoron. High stock prices are a popular barometer of social mood, while high bond prices keep interest rates low, benefitting the largest borrowers, governments.

Consider the absurdity of loaning money to any of today’s welfare state governments, including the most indebted of them all, the US government. Most of them haven’t run an honest, GAAP budget surplus in decades. They have compiled staggering amounts of debt relative to their economies’ GDPs.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Interest Rates Are Never Going Back to Normal

March 21, 2016

Interest Rates Are Never Going Back to Normal

Grotesque Mutants

BALTIMORE – Let’s see… U.S. corporate earnings have been going down for three quarters in a row. The median household income is lower than it was 10 years ago. And now JPMorgan Chase has increased its estimated risk of a recession to about one in three.

Mutants From the grotesque mutants collection Image via residentevil.com

These things might make sober investors wonder: Is this a good time to pay some of the highest prices in history for U.S. stocks? Apparently, they don’t think about it…

Last week U.S. stocks rose again, after the Fed announced that it would go easy on “normalizing” interest rates. The Dow rose 156 points on Thursday, putting it in positive territory for 2016.

Dow Jones Industrial Average, daily – boosted by loose Fed talk – click to enlarge.

Hooray! Investors – at least those who passively track the index – are even for the year. And with more central bank fixes, maybe they’ll be able to keep their heads above water for the rest of 2016. Good luck with that!

You may recall our prediction: The Fed will never return to a “normal” interest rate. Why not? Many Wall Street analysts say the Fed’s move to bring interest rates to a more normal level – after seven years of ZIRP (zero-interest-rate policy) – was “too early.”

We think it was too late. The Fed has already distorted too much for too long. Its EZ money policies have created a hothouse of speculation, mistakes, and misallocation of resources.

The financial plants that grew up in that environment – grotesque mutants that require huge doses of liquidity – cannot survive a change of seasons. But these plants are big. And powerful.

Washington… the health care industry… housing… Wall Street… They control the U.S. government, the bureaucracy, and major economic sectors – notably the $1 trillion-a-year security industry.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

US Money Supply and Debt – Early Warning Signs Remain Operative

March 18, 2016

US Money Supply and Debt – Early Warning Signs Remain Operative

Still Slowing Down

Year-end distortions have begun to slowly come out of the data, and while broad true US money supply growth remains fairly brisk, it has begun to slow again relative to January’s y/y growth rate, to 7.8% from 8.32%.

Many dollars in the format of a gift box

So far it remains in the sideways channel (indicated by the blue lines below) between approx. 7.4% and 8.6%, in which it has meandered since mid 2013. We believe the next break “below the shelf” is likely to be a significant event.

Broad true US money supply TMS-2, annual growth rate: still in the channel, but slowing again from January’s brief upward spike – click to enlarge.

Readers may recall that it was primarily the US treasury’s general account at the Fed which was responsible for the recent upward spike in the growth rate of TMS-2, combined with a year-end surge in deposit money. We suspect the latter had to do with offshore dollars being moved to domestic accounts at year-end for various accounting-related reasons. This suspicion has been confirmed by the fact that the move has been largely reversed in the new year.

As an aside, total bank credit growth (total loans and leases, excl. mortgage debt) stands at 8.24% y/y as of the end of February, which is still well below the peak growth rates seen in previous boom periods (these were closer to 13%).

As can be seen below, the amount of money held in the general account has declined further in February as well, but it seems to us that this money has merely moved into other demand deposits, i.e., there has simply been a shift from one categorization to another:

Money held in the treasury’s general account at the Fed – the recent record spike has begun to reverse – click to enlarge.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Monetary Base, Buybacks and the Stock Market

March 17, 2016

The Monetary Base, Buybacks and the Stock Market

A Useful Leading Indicator?

We often see charts comparing the S&P 500 to the growth in the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet, or more specifically, to assets held by the Fed. There is undeniably a close correlation between the two, but it has struck us as not very useful as a “timing device”, or an early warning device if you will.

Recently we have come across a video of a presentation by Bob Murphy, in which he uses a slightly different comparison that might prove more useful in this respect. Instead of merely looking at Fed assets, he uses the total monetary base. Here is a chart comparing the monetary base to the S&P 500 Index since 2009:

The monetary base (red line) vs. the S&P 500 (blue line) – as can be seen, sometimes one or the other series leads, but in recent years the monetary base has been a leading indicator. It probably lagged the market in 2010/11 due to the fact that traders at the time bought stocks in anticipation of more monetary pumping – whereas nowadays the market appears to be reacting with a slight lag to changes in base money – click to enlarge.

Below is a chart that shows consolidated assets held by the Federal Reserve system for comparison. Since the Fed is currently reinvesting funds from MBS and treasuries that mature, its total asset base is basically flat-lining since the end of QE3. Obviously, all that can be gleaned from this fact is that the central bank is currently not activelypumping up the money supply. Currently money supply growth is therefore largely the result of commercial bank credit growth.

Assets held by the Federal Reserve – flat-lining since the end of QE3. Interesting, but not useful as a short term leading indicator of the stock market – click to enlarge.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Draghobert the Terrible Strikes Again

March 13, 2016

Draghobert the Terrible Strikes Again

A Whiff of Panic

Ahead of Thursday’s ECB meeting, there was a widespread consensus that Europe’s chief printing press supervisor would make up for the alleged “mistake” of under-delivering on monetary lunacy last time around. Therefore, a sizable dose of fresh absurdities had to be expected, with only small disagreements on the details. It is fair to say the man didn’t disappoint.

Draghobert the Terrible, trying to assault the euro again Photo credit: Michael Probst / AP Photo

There was an even greater consensus that the punters populating the casino were eagerly awaiting such news, and that they stood ready to deploy wagon-loads of money (mostly other people’s) in the direction wished for by the central planning puppeteers. This particular detail didn’t quite work out as expected, at least not at first. For instance, after an initial swoon, the ECB’s very own confetti became more rather than less expensive.

June euro futures, 20 minute candles. At first, the euro did what it was “supposed” to do – and then it went “yen” on the Dragon and his minions – click to enlarge.

Similar scenes played out elsewhere. Here is for instance a 20 minute chart of the June Bund futures contract, which was subject to a similar sudden change in market opinion:

Instant hangover in Bund futures – click to enlarge.

Other playthings were similarly impacted, from the DAX to gold. All the stuff that used to habitually react in a certain manner to more ECB largesse essentially did the opposite of what it was “supposed” to do.

Readers may recall the last time when a similar thing happened. That was on occasion of Kamikaze Kuroda’s attempt to smite putative yen bulls by cutting the BoJ’s deposit rate into negative territory.

That didn’t quite work out as planned either… – click to enlarge.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Mr. MORE!

March 10, 2016

Mr. MORE!

The Man with the Inflation Plan

Proving beyond a shadow of doubt that Keynesian absurdity knows no bounds, Larry Summers has graced the FT – one of the West’s premier establishment propaganda mouthpieces advocating central economic planning as practiced by modern-day regulatory democracies – with yet another cringe-worthy editorial.

a danger to society Larry Summers – it is probably no exaggeration to call the man a danger to civilization Photo credit: Hyungwon Kang / Reuters / Corbis

The editorial is entitled “A world stumped by stubbornly low inflation” with a subheader reading “There is no evidence that policymakers are acting strongly to restore their credibility”.

The title and subheader alone deserve comment. First of all, absolutely no-one outside the inhabitants of the incestuous ivory tower of Keynesian and monetarist mainstream economists and the central planning bureaucrats infesting central banks is in any way “stumped” by “low inflation”.

We suspect that there are billions of consumers in the world who would prefer prices to stop rising altogether. In fact, we believe they not only want them to stop rising, they actually want them to decline. But what do they know? Mr. Summers and his central planning comrades have decreed that it is “bad” for them if they are able to buy more rather than less with their income!

As to the perceived lack of policymaker “credibility”: They don’t deserve any. The world’s economic malaise is to 100% their fault. If only it were true that they are “not acting”! The truth is unfortunately that they continue to heap folly upon folly.

Need we remind Mr. Summers of the Bank of Japan’s decision to implement the perversion of negative deposit rates, or the decision of the Riksbank to lower its negative rates to minus 50 basis points in the middle of a raging housing and consumer credit bubble, even though Sweden’s GDP is forecast to grow by 3%?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Alan Greenspan’s Pickled Economy

March 6, 2016

Alan Greenspan’s Pickled Economy

Winter of Discontent

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan resurfaced this week. We couldn’t recall the last time we’d heard from him. But, alas, the old fellow’s in desolate despair.

Alan-Greenspan Unexpectedly rising from the crypt: Alan Greenspan Photo credit: AP

On Tuesday, for instance, he told Bloomberg he hasn’t been optimistic for “quite a while.” Obviously, this is in contrast to the perennial Goldilocks attitude he had during the 1990s. So what is it that has the Maestro playing a low dirge?

China, the dollar, Dodd-Frank, and associated unknowns are all part of his negative outlook. But the long winter of his discontent is something else. Greenspan said he “won’t be [optimistic] until we can resolve entitlement programs.”

“Nobody wants to touch [entitlements]. But it is gradually crowding out capital investment and that is crowding out productivity and that is crowding out the standards of living,” said Greenspan.

Indeed, funding entitlement programs is becoming more burdensome by the year. As a greater percentage of the economy’s GDP goes toward entitlement programs, a lesser percentage goes towards capital investment. The effect of this negative feedback loop, as Greenspan infers, is quite simple.

ramirez-entitlement-cartoon An enticing lure…. Cartoon by Michael Ramirez

Less capital investment leads to lower productivity. Lower productivity leads to slower GDP growth. Slower GDP growth leads to an economy that can’t keep pace with entitlement programs. Thus, an even smaller percentage of GDP is, in turn, available for capital investment…to propel future growth. And so on, and so forth.

A 2012 forecast of entitlement spending by the Heritage Foundation. This seems not exactly sustainable – click to enlarge.

What Drives Economic Growth?

Certainly, this is a basic insight. But perhaps Greenspan is on to something much larger than just the issue of entitlement programs. From what we can tell he’s getting at the question of economic growth. Namely, what drives it?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Always Watched, Always Monitored, Always Recorded

March 2, 2016

Always Watched, Always Monitored, Always Recorded

Trade Slump

BALTIMORE – When we left you yesterday, we were discussing the War on Cash – the push by governments to abolish physical currency. It is a fraud. The idea is not to fight crime or boost the economy, as its proponents claim. It is part of a bigger campaign by the Deep State to take more control over your money… and your life.

We’ll return to our theme in a moment. But first… an update on the markets and the economy. It came out last week that world trade did indeed fall in 2015. It was the first time this had happened since 2009.

CAT The decline in sales of “yellow machines” has turned out to be a meaningful signal… Photo credit: Caterpillar Tractor Company

Starting at the end of last year, we began following the trains, trucks, ships, and sales of “yellow machines” – backhoes, loaders, bulldozers, etc. – and watching them all slow down.

Sure enough, they were telling us something important. Reports the Financial Times:

“The value of goods that crossed international borders last year fell 14% in dollar terms.”

Most notably, a decline in world trade means China is not exporting as much merchandise as before. This, we guessed, would mean a greater outflow of foreign exchange reserves from China’s central bank… and make it more difficult for it to prop up the exchange value of the renminbi.

The dollar value of global trade has slumped to the depths of the 2008/9 crisis low

A country accumulates foreign exchange reserves when it exports more than it imports. In the case of China, dollars, euro, etc… flow into the country in exchange for Chinese-made goods. This foreign currency builds up as reserves at the central bank. It can then dip into this stash to buy its own currency and prop up its value.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Day of Reckoning Imminent

February 27, 2016

Day of Reckoning Imminent

Fudging Numbers

It all seems so systematic, arranged, and orderly. Sixty seconds make a minute, 60 minutes make an hour, 24 hours make a day, and one day equals one complete rotation of the planet earth. Roughly every 30 days the moon orbits the earth – which is one month. Then every 12 months the earth orbits the sun – which is one year. So far so good…right?

The Gregorian calendar Oldish German calendar. Image via sciencesource.com

But here’s where the nice and neat order of it all breaks down. For if you try to measure one of earth’s orbits of the sun in days it’s not so divinely tidy. For it takes 365 days plus an inconvenient 6 hours to fully complete the cycle. Nonetheless, we don’t let these inconvenient 6 hours hamper our perfection.

We’re humans, after all. We innovate, invent, and make the world in our image. So when the numbers don’t jive, we do what must be done. We fudge them. We create an off balance account, we concoct a new theory, we contrive negative interest rate policy…and we invent a leap year.

This coming Monday is the day the books must be reckoned. Peering into our off balance account we find 24 accrued hours that must be tallied up and rectified. Consequently, we must have a day of correction for the disorder of the last four years. We must resynchronize the calendar year with the astronomical year. Moreover, we must reground our measuring system with its baseline – its reference point.

BrandoJuliusCaesar Did you really think we’d let you get away with that calendar-fudging, oh Julius? February 29? Seriously? Photo credit: MGM/Turner Ent.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

European Disunion

February 26, 2016

European Disunion

Greece vs. Austria: Non-Friendly Acts

Two days ago we came across a headline at Reuters, informing us that “Greece rages at neighbors as fears migrants could be halted”. Say what? What the hell is this supposed to mean? Is this even English? Possibly Reuters employs the same headline editor as Bloomberg….he or she is definitely equally bad.

Kotzias, enraged Nikos Kotzias (νίκοσ κοτζιάσ), a former member of the Central Committee of the Greek Communist Party. Nowadays, oddly enough, he is Greece’s foreign minister. Here seen enraged. Photo credit: Simela Pantzartzi

Anyway, we delved into the article to see what it was about. Here are a few pertinent excerpts:

“Greece raged at neighbors and began busing refugees and migrants back from its northern border on Tuesday, after new restrictions by countries on the main land route to Western Europe trapped hundreds behind a bottleneck at the frontier. Athens filed a rare diplomatic protest with fellow EU member Austria for excluding Greek officials from a high-level meeting on measures aimed at curbing Europe’s biggest inward migration since World War Two.

[…]

Austria is due to host west Balkan states on Wednesday to discuss efforts to manage and curb the flow, but did not invite Greece. In unusually heated language that shows how the migration crisis has raised passions across Europe, Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias described the snub as a “unilateral and non-friendly act”.

“The exclusion of our country at this meeting is seen as a non-friendly act since it gives the impression that some, in our absence, are expediting decisions which directly concern us.”

[…]

Austria, the last country on the overland route to Germany, said last week it had imposed a daily limit of 3,200 migrants passing through, and 80 asylum claims.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Australia’s Housing Bubble: In the Grip of Insanity

February 24, 2016

Australia’s Housing Bubble: In the Grip of Insanity

Perverse Incentives

We haven’t written about Australia’s residential real estate bubble for some time (readers may want to check out last year’s post “Australia’s Bubble Trouble”, which contains numerous relevant charts and data).

Property Auction in Sidney-3 Property auction in Sidney

Our friend Jonathan Tepper of Variant Perception has recently visited Australia for a fact-finding tour (more on this further below), so we felt we might as well take the opportunity to write an update on the topic.

House prices in Sidney vs. the administered interest rate of the Reserve Bank of Australia. As you will see below, interest rates aren’t the only driver of the bubble – click to enlarge.

Our reader D.S., who has moved to Australia five years ago, has provided us with a number of very interesting observations on the Australian housing market late last year, which we are sharing below. As D.S. notes, there are a number of interesting wrinkles specific to Australia’s real estate market, which outsiders are generally not likely to be aware of. We have highlighted a few passages in his report below which we think are especially important:

“The housing bubble in Australia has been talked about so extensively and has lasted so long without any harm coming to it that people here have pretty much dismissed the very possibility of a crash – including, it has to be said, the chances of a recession. The reason I was motivated to write this note is because there are some (I believe) unique dynamics at play in this housing market, which aren’t necessarily apparent to the outsider – at least, I was never aware of them until I moved here.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Fatal Flaw That Has Doomed Our Economy

February 22, 2016

The Fatal Flaw That Has Doomed Our Economy

What Went Wrong?

BALTIMORE – We are searching for an insight. Each time we think we see it… like the shadow of a ghost in an old photo… it gets away from us. It concerns the real nature of our money system… and what’s wrong with it. Here… we bring new readers more fully into the picture… and try to spot the flaw that has doomed our economy.

Let’s begin with a question. After the invention of the internal combustion engine, people in Europe… and then the Americas… got richer, almost every year. Earnings rose. Wealth increased. Then in the 1970s, after two centuries, American men ceased making progress.

1859: Frenchman Etienne Lenoir builds a double-acting, spark-ignition engine that can be operated continuously. The internal combustion engine is born.

Despite more PhDs than ever… more scientists… more engineers… more capital… more knowledge… more Nobel Prizes… more college graduates… more machines… more factories… more patents… and the invention of the Internet… after adjusting for inflation, the typical American man earned no more in 2015 than he had 40 years before.

Why? What went wrong? No one knows. But we have a hypothesis. Not one person in 1,000 realizes it, but America’s money changed on August 15, 1971. After that, not even foreign governments could exchange their dollars for gold at a fixed rate.

The dollar still looked the same. It still acted the same. It still could be used to buy booze and cigarettes. But it was flawed money. And it changed the whole world economy in a fundamental way… a way that is just now coming into focus.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The World is Red

February 20, 2016

The World is Red

With a Gloomy Start to 2016, a Bust Seems just Around the Corner

Markets have corrected substantially since the beginning of the year as most of the gains of the past two years have been erased. According to Bloomberg, 40 out of the largest 63 markets have dropped over 20%. The image below shows the performance of markets word-wide since their most recent peaks. Most markets are in a bear market phase or are at best experiencing a strong correction. The world is red!

Where do global markets stand?

A heat map of global stock markets by Bloomberg – click to enlarge.

China’s economy is slowing down and oil prices have slumped to a new multi-year low. Is this the bust phase of the cycle that started in 2008? In our ‘Clean Slate’ report about Austrian Business Cycle Theory, we explained that there appear to be short-term cycles in operation, which last approximately 7 years, but also long-term cycles with a duration of around 50 years.

Those familiar with the bible are aware of the term “jubilee”, which signifies the end of a 50-year long-term debt cycle, when all outstanding debts are annulled and slaves are freed. But before the “jubilee” of our time happens, things are likely to get worse. Governments are apt to take measures that will constrain our liberties further. Their objective is to maintain an artificially centralized system by force – however, eventually this system will fall apart.

Past recessions, such as the oil shock of 1973, the double-dip recession of 1980-81, the stock market crash in 1987, the bond market crash in 1994, the dot-com bubble’s demise in 2001 or the 2008 financial crisis were all busts operating within short-term cycles. We believe that we are approaching the end of the current 7-year cycle.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“Stimulus Hopes” – a Dog that Ain’t Hunting no More

February 17, 2016

“Stimulus Hopes” – a Dog that Ain’t Hunting no More

A Rebound in Stocks Begins

Given that a very sharp downturn in so-called “risk assets” is well underway globally, but not yet fully confirmed by US big cap indexes, we are keeping an eye out for confirmation. This is to say, we are looking for events, market moves, positioning data, even newspaper headlines, that will either confirm or refute the notion that a larger scale bear market (as opposed to just a deep correction) has begun.

Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda Haruhiko Kuroda will stimulate us back to Nirvana! Hurrah! Photo credit: Yuya Shino / Reuters

Readers may recall an article we posted earlier this year, discussing historical examples of the stock market swooning in the seasonally strong month of January (see: “Stock Market Suffers Worst Start to the Year Ever” for details). When the market does something like this, it is more often than not sending a message worth heeding. Chart patterns of course never repeat in precisely the same manner, but such historical patterns are nevertheless often useful as rough guides.

As a reminder, here is a chart of the DJIA from 1961 to 1962. Both the distribution period preceding the sell-off, as well as the timing and pattern of the sell-off itself show many similarities to what has so far occurred in 2015 to 2016:

The DJIA from 1961 to 1962. We may be at the beginning of the period equivalent to the one in the green rectangle – click to enlarge.

In keeping with this, we would now normally expect the market to rebound from the initial sell-off and retrace a portion of its losses over a period of several weeks before resuming the decline from a lower high. Last week the bond market delivered a technical signal on the daily chart, which based on well-known inter-market correlations suggests that such a rebound has likely begun.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Convenient Beliefs

February 15, 2016

Convenient Beliefs

“Massive Deterioration” – Worse Than 2008

BALTMORE – “Stocks still not finding bottom” warned a headline at Investor’s Business Daily. On Thursday, the Dow ended down 255 points – or 1.6%. The index is down by almost 9% since the start of the year.

“These developments, if they prove persistent, could weigh on the outlook for economic activity…” proffered a nervous-looking Janet Yellen in her testimony on Capitol Hill. She was signaling to investors.

Yellen_cartoon_02.27.2015 Smoke signals…

“Don’t worry about us,” she may as well have said. “If we can get away with a big U-turn, we’re not going to raise rates anymore.”

On Tuesday, Maersk Group, the world’s largest container shipping company, said it was suffering a “massive deterioration” in its business.

“It is worse than 2008,” its CEO, Nils Andersen, told the Financial Times. But this is not even near the bottom for the world economy. Hedge fund manager Kyle Bass warns that the other shoe is a big one… and it hasn’t dropped yet.

A Maersk container ship…the line is feeling the pinch – the Baltic Dry Index has collapsed to just 291 points (from approx. 11,800 at the 2008 peak) and container shipping rates have declined sharply as well. Photo credit: Michael Kooren / Reuters

China’s economy is heavily dependent on capital investment. It puts its money into building factories, highways, offices, apartment blocks, railroads, ports, and airports. What do all these projects require? Rebar!

Concrete is reinforced with steel bars. As the pace of building slows, the price of rebar goes down. In 2008, a ton of rebar cost about 5,500 renminbi ($836). Now, it costs barely 2,000 renminbi ($304) – the lowest price in at least 15 years.

Shanghai steel rebar futures, weekly in RMB – click to enlarge.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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